Redskins invite Reid to a game

The president of the Washington Redskins on Friday invited Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to a game and rejected the growing call to change the team’s name.

“I hope you will attended one of our home games, where you would witness first-hand that the Washington Redskins are a positive, unifying force for our community in a city and region that is divided on so many levels,” Bruce Allen wrote to the Nevada Democrat.

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Reid has been a vocal opponent of the Redskins name, co-signing a letter sent Thursday with his Senate Democrat colleagues to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, which called for the league to support changing the name. Reid also took to the Senate floor and Twitter to slam the name as offensive and derogatory, and said Goodell and Redskins owner Dan Snyder should follow the NBA, which banned Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling from the league for life last month following his racist remarks.

Allen, whose brother George Allen is a former senator and governor of Virginia and whose father, also named George Allen, was head coach of the Redskins in the 1970s, said in his letter that the term “originated as a Native American expression of solidarity.”

Allen also noted that the logo was designed by Native Americans and that an “overwhelming majority” of the American-Indian community do not find the name offensive, according to a poll. Allen added that surveys show most Americans also support the Redskins keeping its name.

Allen wrote that the team will continue to provide support to the Native American community through the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation. “It is our mission to help tackle the troubling realities facing so many tribes in our country,” Allen wrote.